I am not a professional and do not plan on making a business out of this. That in mind, I want to make travel photos available to buy (mostly for family and friends) as prints and maybe notecards or postcards. I was looking at professional sites like SmugMug and Zenfolio, but it seems like maybe it wouldnt be worth the investment, since I dont need to do client proofing or their more advanced professional stuff. That said, I would like it to look like my own website. I am okay with a yearly fee, but not one that is so high I dont profit anything. Any suggestions? I also saw the pro section of Shutterfly... any experience with that? Thanks for any input on your experience with these sites :)
@hellcat their pricing looks similar to the Shutterfly system... they charge a base price, you mark it up to what you want, and they take out 15 percent commission. Do you think it is very user friendly? They have a basic yearly fee of less than half that of shutterfly, so I am checking it out a little more. thanks!
I would say to just set your prices to include the yearly cost and commission if you're not looking to make profit. Otherwise, set higher. I've also set it so that everyone is forced to order through Bay Photo as opposed to the cheaper printing option that they have there.
I've never had a client complain so far about the ordering process.
I tried in the past some services, but none of those went good. Just few "coins".... one day National Geographic suprprises me buying me this shot: http://flic.kr/p/6TkCm8
Other day a company of books bought another shot suddenly, asking me directly by email.
So, my opinion and experience is that websites that offer you selling your pics are used by hotel, restaurants, shops...so, if you take pictures of products that can be bought in a store, or even food; you have posibiloities to sell pics. If you take pics of landscapes (as I do, look into my Flickr account, the 365project is so different of what kind of pics I take), forget to sell lot of pics.
Good luck finding a good place! :)
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I've never had a client complain so far about the ordering process.
Other day a company of books bought another shot suddenly, asking me directly by email.
So, my opinion and experience is that websites that offer you selling your pics are used by hotel, restaurants, shops...so, if you take pictures of products that can be bought in a store, or even food; you have posibiloities to sell pics. If you take pics of landscapes (as I do, look into my Flickr account, the 365project is so different of what kind of pics I take), forget to sell lot of pics.
Good luck finding a good place! :)
I know @fotomama uses them and she uses www.mpixpro.com for printing. I LOVE miller's photo lab for printing (and I think the two work together).
Her site: http://www.sweetshotsphotography.org/